


We were never silent

by Oceanna



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: "let's try to have a queer history instead", Historical analysis, LGBTQ Characters, LGBTQ Themes, Like "Turf war gave us some history of homophobia", Multi, Politics, Queering history, So yes there's homophobia, This is just world building, but it's not the main subjet, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 13:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14955275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oceanna/pseuds/Oceanna
Summary: This is an attempt to imagine how queer life existed in the Avatar World while being consistent with the information of Turf War. And while making those information a lot more logical than they sounded to me.""The One Hundred yeasr War marked the end of a golden period in which queer subcultures gained an unprecedented visibility... While silence became a way of life, there were always small islands of resistance, but they were fragile and only accessible to a few. However they prove that we were never condemned to a life of secret shame and self-hatred."





	We were never silent

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Nous ne nous sommes jamais tus](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14545410) by [Oceanna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oceanna/pseuds/Oceanna). 



> Sooo… That fanfic is basically me reading Turk wars and going “all right, let’s try to imagine a consistent queer history from that crappy background”, and then deciding to translate it into English. I hope you like it and don’t hesitate to comment! I also wrote a few ficlets in French in that universe, but I’m not sure I’ll translate them (it's a lot of work and I'm not sure I'll commit to it if that first OS don't have many readers).
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy !
> 
> I used a translation of the calendar we can see in the library. In terms of timeline each era begins with the revelation of the avatar (when they are approximately sixteen).  
> \- Zhang Shun: era of avatar Kuruk (who is killed by spirit Ko)  
> -Yuan Zheng: era of avatar Kyoshi (and I made her lifetime more normal than 230 years. Make it a calendar mistake).  
> -Zuo Guang: era of avatar Roku  
> -Ri Wu: era of avatar Aang.

> The moment the paint is being applied on my skin
> 
> I exist. Nor naked neither covered by my public appearance
> 
> I am both and neither : I am the shimmering in-between
> 
> The hand that masks and reveals is never mine.
> 
> Avatar Kyoshi, _Dusk poems_

_._

For me, it started a decade ago when firelord Zoku abolished his great-grandfather’s edict on moral asociability and avatar Aang confirmed that Kyoshi had had lovers of both genders.

I was in a bar with some coworkers, and one of them asked me about it, ending it with:

“It’s a good piece of news for people like you, isn’t it?”

The question was not surprising, since I didn’t hide I was living with another woman – once I considered it as some sort of personal duty. After all, I was in from an open-minded family and Republic City university was home of many three-thinkers, so I wasn’t sacrificing a lot. Yet, I didn’t know how to answer right away. I was good news, but what did it meant for me?

But, as I kept thinking about it, I realized that those small news had a lot of consequences. The first that dawned on me was that one of the most common queer expression “to take out/hide your fan” was most likely inspired by Kyoshi herself. Taking out our fan just mean to behave in a very visible way, and to hide it was the contrary. It’s maybe the most universal term for our community. I knew that it was an old expression and I knew of rumors that Kyoshi was not straight. Even if I was an historian, I never dared to think them true. I was afraid it was only wishful thinking caused by my own bias. Suddenly it was obvious that for nearly two hundred years those expressions were transmitted from people to people and served a similar purpose. It meant people like me kept sharing it and were never isolated enough for it to disappear.

I t was overwhelming.  I knew that a few historians postulated that same thing, but it was always very prudent and I had always avoided most of those debates.  I couldn’t stop thinking about what it meant .  In the end, I contacted like-minded historians, they contacted others and the word spread further than I though possible. We founded the Society for  K nowledge and  R esearch and we started collecting information to start  searching for traces of a queer history .  We went from town to town to collect archives and  stories , and what came through was enormous. We received diaries and letters, people wrote down legends and rumors, people agreed to meet us and talk about their life… I remember a s m all stack of letters, sent anonymously, that transcribed Earth militias’ archives we weren’t allowed to see…  Many of  what was collected have not been yet studied  in depth , but we are  now able to have a  better  sense of what our  immediate  history looks like.

Queer people who are alive at the end of the One Hundred War are the children and grandchildren of a traumatic event. Before our work, I heard that the genocide of the Air nomads – the only country known for their acceptance of people regardless of gender or sexual identities – was the end of many hopes for safety, knowledge and spiritual guidance.

The truth is maybe even more horrifying. Queers subcultures were starting to grow  in the Fire and the Eath nation , and all of those were slowly asphyxiated  during the Zuo Guang era and  nearly  forgotten during the One Hundred War. T he air nomad genocide is a brutal point in our history  as the culmination of a slow repressive situation that happened during Zuo Guang era.  The militarization of the Earth kingdom and the Fire nation meant that q ueer life  began to be repressed …  While silence became a way of life, there  were always small islands of resistance,  but t hey were fragile and  only  accessible to a few.  T hey  prove that we were never condemned to a life of secret shame and self-hatred, even if the One Hundred War destroyed the possibility of thinking ourselves as an “us”.

.

The best starting point for our recent history starts with Zhang Shun era. In the Earth Kingdom, a lot of utopians dedicated their lives to imagine an ideal system, often represented as a perfect city. Nearly all of them rejected the Earth monarch’s dominion and the rising centralization. Many were scientists so they elaborated a rational understanding of what men and women should be. They began to classify people as different types, and among them appeared the _uranians_ who deviated from sexual or gender norms. Uranians sparked some debates: it was argued that since they were unwilling to have children, they were useless – but many more remarked that the presence of childless couple was a natural way of regulating the population. While fairly minors in the utopians’ cities, uranians sparkled interest of a broader audience. As the air nomads had already written texts about people that changed gender and same-sex coupled, those became better known and started to get translated.

Chin the conqueror used many concepts that steamed from those utopians – even if most of them took their distance from him once they became convinced he would be as authoritarian as the current king.

Once the rebellion was broken down, most theories were forbidden since they could incite another conflict. However, since Yuan Zheng era was mostly prosperous and avatar Kyoshi wholly respected, some concepts continued to be used – among them, uranians. While many people were still wary, sexual and gender identities were not seen as a direct danger to society. The term uranism became quickly obsolete because no one in the community used it, but what it uncovered could be named and talked about at last. While it is obvious that queer practices and slang existed before, many of the names we use now are a direct consequence of the debates about gender and sexuality that sparked then.

I can not speak of Yuan Zhneg without starting with avatar Kyoshi, since she is a central figure that marked durably our culture. She shapped some of its slang: I talked about hiding and taking out one’s fan, but there is also the outdated expression “women with big feet”. She advocated against the theory of uranism and the analyses that stemmed from it, but showed herself as a public figure of a bisexual woman. She also tirelessly transgressed conception of gender and gender-role that were common in the Earth kingdom. As the avatar, she was essentially above mortal laws and thus impossible to silence. As she did with the Kyoshi warriors, her goal was to leave communities strong enough to thrive without her. It did not succeed as much as the Kyoshi warriors because the circumstances were too different. The queer community was only just aware of its own existence and profoundly divided by their beliefs, interests and point of view. Their sense of community was fledgling because it was too soon to have people going above their own interest for the whole group.

It didn’t mean that her sexuality was widely accepted by the Earth Kingdom: most of our knowledge of her advocacy comes from lampoons and propaganda ordered by the Earth king. First, it was presented as a simple fact, but after Kyoshi ambiguous choices during Chin’s rebellion and the peasant uprisings, the monarchy was at best prudent and at worst confrontational. Many talked about it as an attempt to have her voluntarily resign her post as the Dai Li’s head. This is why many historian were dubious of her bisexuality: it could have been only slander.

Even with that opposition, the simple fact that it could be talked about encouraged many men and women to be more open with their own lives. Avatar Kyoshi started a period when queer culture became visible in both Earth and Fire society. Suddenly, there was a wealth of known meeting place, writings, songs and shows that talked about gender and sexuality. Most of these works were created to titillate a straight audience, and didn’t seek accuracy. Yet they opened the way for queers authors to reach a larger audience and served as a rallying point. In turn, they created novels, songs and plays with a queer public in mind. Some wanted to try and find a common queer element in all cultures and social classes. It lead to a sense of community that went further that just places to seek sexual gratification. In many places questions of gender identity and sexual preferences were mixed together. For example, in novels and shows, a character that disguised their gender opened both the possibility of a queer romance or a redefinition of their own gender. Some explains it by underlining that queer subculture reappropriated straight culture in ways that could or could not be ironical.

Besides creating new content, people also tried to reach into history in order to gain legitimacy. Some defended new interpretation of classical literature. Air nomads’ texts continued to be translated. Those translations were not always good since many concept are badly assimilated, and most ignore all of those that encouraged to let go of earthly attachment and lust, but they give queerness a legitimacy it lacked. Many queer people sought also another kind of legitimacy by reinterpreting most classical literature.

Despite this brief overview, most queer subculture were dependent on where and when they became apparent, even if some traits can be similar. This is the reason I chose a geographical approach.

.

Queer culture in the Earth kingdom during Yuan Zheng era was mostly based on defying gender essentialism for both poorer and richer classes.

For poor people, changing their appearance seems a way of articulating their desires within a straight norm. Most of the time, the ideal couple was represented by a queer person seducing someone presented as very straight. However, that perceived straightness often seemed more ironical, with people amplifying their femininity and masculinity and thus defying the social norms on their own. Lu An wrote in her diaries that it took her weeks to meet other lesbian in a bar she knew was a meeting place. Eventually the bartender told her to dress more masculinely or femininely, because everyone was thinking she was only talking them up in order to arrest or blackmail them for deviancy. While blackmail was a concern, it must noted that some administrative clerks were willing to accept to deliver marriage licenses and change identity papers, which could provide more security. Despite the risks, many chose to be very visible as an act of pride. Wen Ruogang wrote to a friend that he and other men in drag took great pleasure in overtaking male beauty contests that happened every summer in Omashu.

In the Earth kingdom elites, the goal was to be as androgynous as possible. It was a sign of open-mindedness and a sign of defiance toward the earth monarchy. It translated an intellectual stance that rejected gender essentialism in an attempt to redefine society. One of the most visible example was Xiang Zheland New City. As one of the last utopian living after Chin’s rebellion, he imagined a place where everyone could be equal. He designed a lot of androgynous clothing, refused notions of marriage and sexual fidelity and he insisted that living for a few week as the other gender was important to discover one’s real identity. He managed to get enough money in the year 66 of Yuan Zheng era to built a small village that hosted more than four hundred souls. However, two years after avatar Kyoshi’s death, the city was evacuated by the Dai Li and he was condemned for sedition.

.

In the Fire nation, drag culture didn’t have such an impact. It existed in port towns generally closely linked with prostitution, but it was not the main frame of reference for queer people. Romantic and passionate friendships were the main mode of expression of same-sex relationship. The main cause for that difference seems to be the strong gender separation that was institutionalized both in the army and in the public schools that hosted future high functionaries. Friendship was an institution that had a social importance almost equal to marriage. As such, a lot of close friendships borrowed from love’s rhetoric and were steeped in latent homoeroticism, making it difficult to distinguish one from the other.

In those college, men and women were encouraged to sever their familial bonds, and to embrace a same-gendered universe that would, eventually, give them most of their network. It was a way of ensuring that every dignitaries were cast from the same mold in order to strengthen the central administration. As such, same-sex flirting and close relationship between teachers and students were an institution, even if actual relationships and physical intercourse were forbidden – which made them all the more important in the imagination of many. That system had also another consequence for many marriages, since both spouses were unable to communicate properly with each others, as they were totally unfamiliar with the other’s norms and expectations. It fed a deep nostalgia for school life which appeared a lot more fulfilling than their present situation. Despite that, most men and women never tried to keep homosexual relationships after college, preferring to have close friendship. Homosexuality itself was hidden but we were able to find different secret societies for queer people where people could meet potential partners and understanding spouses. One of them even claimed that they wanted to increase public acceptance. Most of their recorded actions focused on encouraging people to talk a lot more about sex. Their logic was that, for most people, sex was only a way to have children. Homosexuality was only a social problem as it was the embodiment of pleasure without procreation. That may explain why many fictions from that time depict the fall from grace of anyone who succumbed to their earthly desire and the success of those that kept those romantic friendship pure. Andou Koretake took great pleasure in subverting those ideas in his _Tales of disorder_ and his _Aphorism_ _s and other nonsense_ , both published anonymously and were read by many, despite its interdiction.

Outside of those institution, queer life was very discreet. It existed, of course, but it seems that most of them agreed that Earth cities were the place they could truly be free, since they could benefit from their permissiveness – even more than earth native since they were strangers – and were far from their own families and cultural rules.

.

In the middle of that period, the Water tribes were the only place where queer people didn’t gain visibility. Some historians discovered traces of an older practice – seemingly two hundred years before – that allowed “close friends” to marry. It is unclear how and why the practice was lost. There seem to have been some same sex couples, but those relation are so strongly hidden that it is very difficult to have an informed opinion, as we lost the codification that could indicate it.

However, tales and traditions shape an awareness of queer desires and lives. For example, the tale of Ivik-Ivinnguaq tells the story of a woman that fall deeply in love with her female friend. Scared by the power of her feeling, she runs away from her home and lives as a wanderer. Eventually she meets an ocean spirit that accepts to change her into a man. She then goes back to the village as Ivik (male name that signify “small leaf” and is shortened into Ivinnguaq – dear little Ivik – and thus a female name) and asks his fried to marry him, which she accepts once Ivik seduces her.

Despite a wealth of similar stories, silence about actual queer was deep and strong. Poetess Atuqtuaq wrote a lot about her solitude and lack of any model in her posthumous poems in _Longing without a name._

As with the Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom cities are a welcome place to escape. A man named Aippak went with his brother on a commercial expedition to Ekpa. He wrote to a friend:

“ _What I knew about myself was vague and blurred, like the reflection of the moon on the ocean. I know you feel something similar. Come to me in Ekpa: there the sun_ _gives_ _a sharper truth in our souls… People here are unafraid. I receive heated glances from the shyest men and I dare not write what the boldest do in the shadows. For the first time in my life, I am meeting myself and_ _I_ _like what I see._ ”

_._

It is clear that those communities couldn’t have formed without the authorities permissiveness. During Zuo Guang era, that changed: queerness became a danger for society and thus could not be tolerated anymore.

It is usual to say that homosexuality became illegal in the Fire Nation since Sozin’s edict about moral asociability in year 11. Before that however queer people could be arrested for disorderly conduct, usually when they were too flamboyant. That edict is, at its core, a political move. Its uses for queer people is the result of shifting public opinions.

Where the passionate friendship of high dignitaries and in the military were once seen as chaste, the public became more and more sensible to its inherent eroticism. Trials for disorderly conduct became more and more frequent – even if they rarely ended with more than a warning – showing the growing suspicions of public opinion. Plays written during Yuan Zheng era were more difficult to play and the books were more severely censured by pressure groups that wanted to encourage “better morals”. Moralization was an important aspect of public life, since Sozin used that idea in his propaganda to colonize the Earth Kingdom. The idea was that the fire islands were too small to promote a healthy lifestyle and that promiscuity led to perversion.

By that time, military and public schools gained a sulfurous reputation. Between the year 7 and 10 of Zuo Guang era a series of scandals started the end of that system.

In year 7, the Kagesue and the Kujo families put the Public School of Magistrature on trial, as their heirs accused several older comrades of rape. It is a first, since sexual misconduct in school were usually handled discreetly between families. The investigation end up being larger than the small group initially accused, and many young men spoke publicly about what they saw during their studies. Most of the public attention focused on the orgiastic and sadomasochist depiction of after-school hours, even if it concerned a small number of students. Most of them and a few teachers tried to argue about the importance of that culture, to no avail. All teachers were fired and the school closed for two years. When it opened back, it offered mixed courses. During year 10, Hojou Fume, director of the female engineering public school, and two of her teacher were accused of favoring students in exchange for sexual favors. They all resigned and the school was also obligated to have mixed staff and students.

Sozin used the popular outrage to make the edict about moral asociability during year 11. The idea was to have a law that could punish practices deemed “dangerous for the nation”. He then used it to force daimyo Ishino Shikenao to resign with most of his team, and to threaten other high-ranking soldiers in order to have the support he needs to colonize the Earth Kingdom. In the same time, he also used the uproar about public schools to reform them totally. Co-education became the norm, but those changes also hid a slow purge of all his political and intellectual opposition. Those choices were widely applauded by the middle class: they thought they could use it to gain entry to the higher level of society.

In a few years, Sozin managed to ensure that the next generations would support him and his successors. All those institution play a key part in the militaristic mindset that will continue until the Ri Wu era.

.

In the Earth kingdom, the 48th monarch ascended on year 15 of Zuo Guang era. He favored a traditional part of the aristocracy. All the political laissez-faire of the 47th king was quickly forgotten. Despite avatar Roku appeals for leniency, most bar and meeting places for queer people were closed. In most cases the investigations and arrests were made by local militias that served as a police force in the cities. Men and women dressed in drag or a bit too androgynously were subject to suspicion and could easily lose their job – and the militia could choose to warn the employers that their employees were arrested in drag. Most queer people understood very quickly that their flamboyance put them at risk. They began to police themselves and their peers in order to try and avoid negative attention. Most contemporaries had the impression that their community had shrunk. Drag-culture lost most of its visibility, except for a small minority that still existed in a few cities where the militia was corrupt enough to turn a blind eye on many traffics.

As the era is not as prosperous as Yuan Zheng, money was more of a concern for everyone. A policeman in Omashu estimated in his notes that a third of the prostitutes that entertained people of the same gender did it with blackmail in mind. Several suicides seems to confirm that it’s a likely risk for many queers.

In the midst of that repression, the aristocratic couple formed by Li Wuan and Jia Xinyue are something of an exception. Both of them never hid that they had a marriage of convenience: Xinyue insisted to keep her maiden name until the end. They formed a charismatic couple that keep a circle of aesthetes, artists and free-thinkers, and “many strong-footed women and men supple as reeds”. They delighted in provoking the aristocracy and appropriated the drag culture by borrowing each others clothing and identities, up to the point rumors affirmed that they were in fact brother and sister. At first, they appeared as “lovers of beauty and art”: eccentric and mostly harmless. However their endless provocations lead to a simmering anger in the court. They slowly lost the support they had, and in the year 27, Li Wuan was imprisoned for “demoralizing the youth”: the trial became complete humiliation that greatly depressed him – and served as a global warning that eccentricity would not be tolerated anymore. Jin Xinyue chose to avoid hers and accepted to be assigned to her house until her death. She kept writing poems and composing songs until her death, but most of them wouldn’t be discovered for more than a century.

.

In year 29, Roku discovered Sozin’s occupation of Earth territories. The avatar’s inability to make them leave added a patriotic aspect to queerness in the Earth Kingdom. Indeed, the scandals that happened between year 7 and 10 in the Fire nation lead the public to assimilate homosexuality with Fire’s culture. The few remaining elegant men and manly women that were emblematic of Wuan and Xinyue’s circle were not strange eccentrics anymore but possible traitors. Moreover, they were deemed useless to the Earth kingdom. An offical report states that “the men too weak to perform their duties” and the women “not motherly enough to educate their youth”. That idea will stay prevalent for years and explain why there are no woman except the Kyoshi warriors in the earth armies.

Since the preparation of war and the propaganda became prevalent in everyday life, the handsome young earth soldier becomes more and more a subject of glorification and fascination steeped with eroticism. An officer explained that it was a question of honor and pride to have the most handsome ensign in their service. After the first years of war, the myth of lifelong comrade became more and more frequent and laden with sensuality. A newspaper wrote: “they come by two, as if three would dissolve their closely knit bond. They fight side by side, sleep side by side, and stand vigil when the other is wounded. War is cruel and glorious: their bond is both reward and reason to keep marching. They vow not to let death part them and too breath their last at the same time, and sometimes, destiny is clement enough to let them indeed die in a last embrace”.

A common joke in brothels are that homosexual men would always prefer a man in uniform – especially since the new one permitted an easy access to their sex. That image was somehow linked with prostitution. A few cities sent formal request to the Earth monarch asking for their garrisoned soldiers to have a pay raise. They explained that soldiers arrested by the militia for prostitution explained that they couldn’t pay for their groceries. The official sent noted that the situation was more complex and that most of the time, prostitution was a choice to have an extra income.

On women’s side, homosexuality and close friendship confined themselves in private sphere. War companionship offer a ready excuse to explain a close bond: two widows could live together easily with the excuse that they could not forget their dead husband. As long as there were two seemingly occupied bedroom, no one would think otherwise. As such, if it is certain that some women used that excuse to live together as a couple, it is also very complicated to know the frontier between friendship and a relationship. The obligation to be silent is all-encompassing: some women explained that, after a separation with their companions, they had no one to share the real reason of their sorrows. One noted that even if she knew other woman like her, it was such a taboo that she wouldn’t dare mention it.

A variation of this theme exist with the “wanderess”, a phenomenon that was caused by the war and lack of specialized workers. The wanderesses were celibate and sought a form of financial independence. Using the system of turning conscription – in which conscription happened for five years in three provinces at once, then three others – they followed where men departed. They took advantage of a new form of garment that permitted more movement but were still very feminine. As they became specialized workers, they were a welcome replacement for farmers and artisans. They often traveled by two of three to avoid trouble on the road, and generally came to live with married women who sought a bit more money. Most of them disappeared when men came back, but there are some story about them trying to stay. In some case, they were brutally evicted, or they were accepted by the couple, acting as a mediator during the reunion, and in others the wife chose to become a wanderess herself. Once again, it is difficult today to know where friendship end and romance began.

W ar was also used as an excuse to hide a gender change and have new identities papers – using the name of cities that were raided by the fire nation.  There was a marked leniency in those cases when those people underlined that they wanted to adopt and educate war orphans – as they were becoming a problem for the authorities – but the result varied a lot depending on whom was asked to investigate the claim.

.

Similar close friendship were also the norm in the Water tribes. However, they were more institutionalized. Azulon and Ozai’s raids in the south pole obliged men to leave for longer expeditions. On both side, having a close, “preferred” friend was an accepted way of coping with it. It seems it was a former practice linked to long fishing or hunting trip that met a renewal with the war. It was usual to have families and friends commenting when an attachment seemed to passionate, in order to avoid a future rift with the other spouse. Many people explained to me that meeting someone to have sex didn’t infringe on their marriage. They were simply meeting a physiological need that couldn’t otherwise be sated. As such they were only seeking someone to share sex and completely avoid love or relationships: those would be too dangerous on their marriage.

In the North pole, an event is a testimony of the strength of  personal privacy and the difficulty of seeing traces of queer history. Iliuak was a gifted healer, a profession that  was solely reserved for women. She was liked by the community, married, and died after her spouse. When it was time to wash and prepare the corpse, the people present saw that Iliuak was born male:  after it became a bit more known, some affirmed that they knew – from Iliuak themselves or her spouse – while other denied it and said that the rumors sullied the healer’s memory. As there are no recording from Iliuak themselves, it is very difficult to know more about them.

That silence has impact on people. Some are aware very easily of their preference and chose their life consequently. But many others struggle to understand themselves. One woman from the north pole wrote to me: “We were all so naive… Our fate all seemed the same: marriage, then children, then grandchildren. So I married a nice man and had children and avoided thinking about how it wasn’t fulfilling for me. I thought reality is not a tale, life runs on compromises and all that… Then my husband died and I had to find a way to earn money. I went in Ekpa and met my girlfriend there. She was then with another woman, we were just friend, but we talked and she fascinated me until I could understand that looking and liking women like that wasn’t only friendship. It was only chance! Without that I would have died a stranger to myself.”

.

During the hundred year war, the commercial towns of the Earth kingdom were the place where most of queer history is recorded. The general anonymity made it easier to find partners. For innkeepers, it was also a way to have a niche clientele less demanding than the normal one. Docks and warehouse were meeting place for sex and traffic: the local militia could be bribed to turn a blind eye, even if such arrangements did not last a long time. However, cities like Gao Ling and Xia Bei are depicted in literature as sordid cities where everything could be possible.

The situation still asked for secrecy: a series of codes existed to understand where it is possible to meet without risks. Some are nearly universal – for example to wear a red belt seems a clear come-hither for either gender. Others are restricted to only one city or one region. In most cities, there seemed to be a small resurgence of drag culture. Women wore boot with visible steel cape. Men wore leather bracelets. Inns had red or green blinds. In Gao Ling, one can still see inns that have Venetian blinds in the form of stylized penis or vulva, all seemingly created by the same earth bender. The code could also be also hidden in names – it is complicated to reconstruct those, but a number of them were puns about airbending. All those establishment permitted to rent a room for one hour and accepted all clients. Some hid holes in the walls and permitted voyeurs to observe what happened in them for a small fee. All of those had a very short existence, one or two year, but others were opened or appropriated very quickly.

One very well known establishment was in the Misty palm oasis: the Weary Traveler Baths. It is a complex that had both thermal pools and saunas. The owner decided to have several smaller rooms rather than a spacious complex. With the aid of the personnel, some rooms were dedicated to gays and lesbians who were warned when police informants came in search of immoral practices. The sauna vapor was more dense and hid what was happening on the benches. It was also possible to just lay down on sofas near the pool. Some remembered with emotion that it was one of the few place where they could take their time and indulge sensuality a lot more than sexuality. It became key to its success: while most straight people grow tired of it, gays and lesbian renewed their patronage for years. However when it became too visible the militia raided thrice, and closed it on the fourth raid, after twenty three years of existence.

Those codes were key to the security of the whole community and permitted anyone informed enough to live their life with a freedom that is sometimes hard to imagine. However, the secrecy was also a hindrance for newcomers who were more likely to be arrested or blackmailed. While many queer kept an eyes on new faces, most waited to be sure they were not informants before befriending them and showing them the ropes. The whole culture was based on secrecy for self-serving purpose. It was to protect us and the few spaces that were our own, but it was also very limited to finding partners and maybe friends. We were not safe enough to dare to hope for more. We could exist, but the price was to be discreet enough to not alert others of that part of our nature.

A nd maybe it’s the worse effect of the hundred war: we became accustomed to think of our experience as deeply private. We forgot that less than two century ago, there was proof that we were trying to form a community that stood in plain sight – maybe not unafraid, but unwilling to be forgotten and cast aside.  Avatar Aang, perhaps  involuntary , offered us a few crumbs by stating that avatar Kyoshi was not straight. He also permitted some historian to delve into the four  air  temple’s archives. Firelord Zuko abolished the moral asociability edict, conscious  of its political implications .

But, let me ask that: is it enough? Right now, should there be less benevolence, we would still be in danger in the Earth kingdom and the Fire nation. Republic city cops could chose anytime to decide that queer people are a public disturbance. How do we know that the past won’t repeat itself? After all, it wouldn’t take a lot to make what I wrote illegal because it’s immoral or dangerous for young people. I would stand trial, be censured, and maybe my publisher would too. That’s why I believe that we need to come together, to share memories and information and discover that we are much more numerous than we believe. We need to participate in political debates and make our voices heard. In many ways, I do believed that our social and political history just began.


End file.
